Felting needle

ABSTRACT

This invention relates to the spur construction for a felting needle having an elongated body and a pointed end portion at its lower end. The elongated body is formed with one or more rounded corner edges and a plurality of barbs are formed along the body portion in a centered relation with the rounded lengthwise corner edges using a novel spur-forming tool. The spur is defined by a planar material engaging surface of a width at its lower end defined by spaced apart obtuse angled exterior corners and a pair of spaced apart downwardly converging lateral surfaces extending in outwardly diverging directions from the sides of the planar material engaging surface. These lateral surfaces are connected to the planar material engaging surface by means of a pair of obtuse angled exterior corners which are formed free of any sharp edges.

United States Patent [191 Foster [451 June 11, 1974 Primary Examiner-Louis K. Rimrodt Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Johnson, Dienner, Emrich, Verbeck & Wagner [5 7] ABSTRACT This invention relates to the spur construction for a felting needle having an elongated body and a pointed end portion at its lower end. The elongated body is formed with one or more rounded corner edges and a plurality of barbs are formed along the body portion in a centered relation with the rounded lengthwise corner edges using a novel spur-forming tool. The spur is defined by a planar material engaging surface of a width at its lower end defined by spaced apart obtuse angled exterior comers and a pair of spaced apart downwardly converging lateral surfaces extending in outwardly diverging directions from the sides of the planar material engaging surface. These lateral surfaces are connected to the planar material engaging surface by means of a pair of obtuse angled exterior sa pssmhishasierm d fa e 9 ..anx..b?9. 2%?5- 4 Claims, 7 Drawing Figures 1 FELTING NEEDLE BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to improvements in felting needles and the barbing tool used to produce a novel barb design.

In my US. Pat, No. 3,224,067 the importance of providing a uniform width across the spur material engaging surface is noted. Also, in this patent there is stressed the need to relate the width of the material engaging surface to the spur depth. However,-the commercial exploitation of the felting needle covered by US. Pat. No. 3,224,067 was restricted due to its inherent disadvantage of having very sharp spur corners that caused great damage to the fibers.

Accordingly, one object of this invention is to provide a novel spur construction whereby a planar material engaging surface of apredetermined uniform width can be continuously made on a mass production basis without variance.

A further object of this invention is to provide a novel spur construction having obtuse angled corners between the material engaging surface of the spur and its two outwardly diverging lateral surfaces with these corners being free of any sharp edges to thereby prevent damage to the fibers.

The above and other objects, and advantages of my invention will appear from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of this invention.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A felting needle having an elongated body portion and one or more spurs formed along this body portion. Each spur or barb is formed by a novel barbing die or tool to provide a planar material engaging surface of a pre-determined uniform width at its lower end and a pair of outwardly diverging lateral surfaces which extend in a downwardly converging direction. The outer side edges of the planar material engaging surface are interconnected to the. lateral surfaces by a pair of obtuse angled exterior .corners free of any sharp edges.

DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING For a better understanding of this invention, reference may be made to the accompanying drawing, in which:

FIG. 1 is an elevational view of one form of felting needle of my present invention fabricated as described hereinbelow;

FIG. 2 is a greatly enlarged side elevational view of a portion of the body of the needle of FIG. 1 with a barbing tool applied to one of the triangular outer edges;

FIG. 3 is a plan view of the same portion of the needle body as illustrated in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a sectional view taken along the line 4-4 of FIG. 2 and looking in the direction of the arrows;

FIG. 5 is a cross sectional view taken along the line 5-5 of FIG. 2 and looking in the direction of the arrows;

FIG. 6 is an elevational front view showing the bottom portion of the barbing tool used in FIG. 2; and

FIG. 7 is an elevational rear view of the barbing tool showing the bottom portion as illustrated in FIG. 2.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to FIG. 1 of the drawing, I have shown a feltingneedle l0 constructed in accordance with the principles of my invention which comprises a body indicated generally at 12 and a shank indicated generally at 14. The lower end of the body 12 is pointed as at 16 to facilitate penetration of the fibrous material to be compacted in a conventional manner.

The upper end of the needle may be bent substantially at right angles to the shank 14 to provide a securing element or ear 18 for clamping between abase member and a clamping member of a conventional needle plate. As is well known in the art, such a needle plate is adapted to support a plurality of felting needles of the type shown in FIG. 1, which in reciprocation of the plate in the felting machine effects the interlacing and compacting of loose fibrous materials.

The felting needles of my present invention may be made of any ordinary or conventional needle stock having the necessary mechanical strength as, for example, steel wire. In making up the needles of my present invention, preferably originally rounded steel wire stock is used from which a suitable length is cut to form a needle with a portion thereof that is to become the body of the needle, preferably being swaged in accordance with the conventional practice to form a triangular cross section, as shown, having rounded lengthwise edges 20 at the intersections of adjacent side surfaces of the body portion of the needle.

A portion of the material of body 12 of the needle along one of the corner edges 20 is displaced to form a recess 22 and such displaced material is shaped into a barb 24 above the recess. The recess 22 and barb 24 are formed by a tool 26, which is centered on the edge 20. The spur 24 is formed to extend laterally outwardly of the body portion with its fiber or material engaging surface 28 projecting downwardly or toward the pointed end of the needle.

The spur or barb 24 is defined by a planar material engaging surface 28 of a width at its lower end being defined by spaced apart obtuse angled exterior corners 34 and 36, and two downwardly converging lateral surfaces 30 and 32 which extend in outwardly diverging directions from the side edges of the material engaging surface 28. The angles of comers 34 and 36 are obtuse to avoid any sharp edges that would cut the fibrous materials, and the corners extend in a generally parallel relationship.

The bottom wall 40 of recess 22 is defined by two distinct contiguous surfaces 42 and 44. This type of bottom wall construction is disclosed in my US. Pat. No. 3,641,636, and described in that patent, centers the formation of a spur along the center line of the needle blade. The innermost surface 42 of bottom wall 40 comprises two intersecting plane surfaces 46 and 48 extending at an obtuse angle from ridge 50 which is parallel to the longitudinal center line of the needle body 12. The configuration of this innermost surface is most important in that its formation in the needle body 12 results in the accurate alignment of the barb-forming tool on the edge 20.

The outermost surface 44 of the bottom wall 40 has a convex configuration extending at a diagonal angle downwardly of the body 12 and serves to shed the fibers as are needed. The total length of the bottom wall 40 can be selectively varied by changing the angle between the outermost surface and the outer surface of the body portion 12 to thereby selectively change the throat opening 22. This selective feature permits control over the admittance of fiber into the throat 22 to determine the number of fibers needed per stroke.

Referring now to FIGS. 6 and 7, there is shown the bottom end portion of a barbing tool 26 used to form the spur configuration 24 and recess.22. ln HO. 6, there is shown the front face 60 of the barbing tool 26 having a recess 62 comprising a planar surface 64 at its center that forms the spur material engaging surface 28 to a pre-determined width, a pair of parallel interior corners 66 and 68 joining the planar surface 62 and the two spur lateral surface forming portions 70 and 72, respectively. The two corners 66, 68 are obtuse to provide the oblique exterior corners 34 and 36, respectively -to be free of sharp edges. The two spur lateral surface forming portions 70, 72 are outwardly diverging and planar.

The innermost surface 42 of the bottom wall 40 is formed by the pair of downwardly diverging surfaces 76 and 78, respectively, which extend from the center ridge 80. Likewise the outermost surface 44 is formed by two downwardly diverging surfaces, 82 and 84, respectively which extends at diagonal angles downwardly from the center crown .86.

From the foregoing description, it will be appreciated principles of this invention provides a barb construction having a broader face than heretofore possible which provides more mass to wear away while at the same time establishing rounded edges at the side wall spur face intersections. By using the barbing tool described above, it is possible to economically produce a superior and identical spur every time which will wear longer than prior known spur constructions and have a uniformity of the spurs face width which was not heretofore possible.

I claim: a

l. A felting needle comprising a body portion, a spur extending'laterally outwardly of said body portion, said spur having a material engaging surface of a width at its lower end defined by spaced apart obtuse angled exterior corners free of any sharp edges, and two downwardly converging lateral surfaces of said spur common with said spur material engaging surface to said spaced apart corners.

2. The needle of claim 1, wherein said two spaced apart corners are parallel.

3. The needle of claiml, wherein said spur material engaging surface is planar.

4. The needle of claim 1, wherein said two lateral surfaces of the spur are planar.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CERTIFIQATE OF CORRECTION Pa e 3,815,186 Dated June 1.1, 1974 Inventor) Edson P. Foster It is certified, that error appears in the above-ide'htified patent and that said Letters Patent are hereby corrected as shown below: .v

F I Column 2, line 53:

after "and" insert --asalso Column 3, line 16:

cancel "oblique" and insert --obtuse angled--,

Signed and sealed this 24th day of September 1974.

(SEAL) Attest:

MCCOY M. GIBSON JR. C. MARSHALL DANN Attesting Officer Commissioner of Patents 

1. A felting needle comprising a body portion, a spur extending laterally outwardly of said body portion, said spur having a material engaging surface of a width at its lower end defined by spaced apart obtuse angled exterior corners free of any sharp edges, and two downwardly converging lateral surfaces of said spur common with said spur material engaging surface to said spaced apart corners.
 2. The needle of claim 1, wherein said two spaced apart corners are parallel.
 3. The needle of claim 1, wherein said spur material engaging surface is planar.
 4. The needle of claim 1, wherein said two lateral surfaces of the spur are planar. 